


Entities of Fear: The Tower

by lilyrosa143



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, Basically think TMA premise but set in a DnD world, Body Horror, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Pre-Canon, Prequel, Psychological Horror, Statement Fic, as a warning, interconnected One shots, just like, other kinds of horror, playable RPG, there are no canon characters in this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:00:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22415143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilyrosa143/pseuds/lilyrosa143
Summary: “I’d like to say I don’t know why I did it. But I do."Hundreds of years in the past, before Jonah Magnus started the Institute and all that happened as a result, the Entities were already here.And they needed avatars.This is a combination of my two current loves: TMA and DnD. The first fifteen chapters will be the statements of several Avatars regarding a shipwreck.The last chapter will be the outline for a playable RPG in which the players are Avatars (all or most of the statement givers should be playable as pre-mades and the rest can be used as npcs) trying to come to terms with their powers and stop the end of the world.
Kudos: 7





	1. Dead in the Water

Statement of Atoll Bradley, regarding the shipwreck of the Corinthia. 

“I suppose what you care about is the fire, right? I mean, everything before that was pretty normal, The weather had been alright the whole trip, and the passengers all seemed nice enough. But then, that fire. I don't know how it started, I'm not sure anyone ever found out - it wasn't like we were transporting anything especially flammable. Maybe it was just a lamp that shattered and caught the wood before anyone noticed, but I think it must have spread too fast for that. I don't know, I guess I don't have a lot of experience as far as flaming ships go. Ha, yeah, still more than most, I guess.

"Anyways, after the fire broke out, I was just trying to get everyone onto the lifeboats – the kids especially. There were a few families on board and I've seen plenty of shipowners try to cut expenses with the number of dinghies they have on hand, and wasn't about to see any kids choking on smoke just because that gray bearded bastard is a cheapskate.

"So I was running around, and it was like I had tunnel vision, you know? I could barely see the flames as I navigated the deck and below, scooping up Jemma's - two freckle faced-brats and just carrying them out, one under each arm. Sometimes it was just a matter of clearing the way. I’m a big guy, not a lot of folks have the strength to lift a burning chunk of mast up, you know? So if you think about it, if you’re the only one who can, you have to.

"You have to.

“It wasn’t until I helped load up the boat with the doctor and the cook and saw it lower to the ocean that I realized the deck was quiet -- except for the crackling of the fire, I guess, and the splitting thud of a piece of wood giving in to the urge to become charcoal. And then I realized there weren't any lifeboats left. I was alone there on a flaming ship.

“...So I just jumped.

“I never learned to swim. Why would I? Someone in my line of work? Sure, people think it’d be a necessary thing, considering how you’re surrounded by water 24 hours a day, but being honest, everyone knows that if you go overboard, you’re as good as dead. It’s a long drop, first off, with a lot of wood you can hit your head on and *if* you make it to the water conscious, a boat this size does thing where it sucks you under like it’s the center of its own current. After that, there’s the sharks... or worse.

“I did think about all that before I jumped, I did, but I guess I figured I had a better chance in the water than on that ship, or what was left of it, I guess. I’m a pretty fit guy, so I figured I might be able to jump out far enough that I could avoid hitting my head or getting sucked under, and then maybe I could paddle out to one of the boats before they got too far out. It couldn’t be that hard.

“I know that's silly, but there’s something in us that makes us believe we aren’t going to die. Like we can still do something. Like there’s hope. And I looked down at that water and thought that. ‘Maybe there’s hope.’

“I took a deep breath, jumped as far as I could and then straightened my body like a board, hoping that would keep the impact from doing too much damage. And then I hit the water and all I felt was cold. I was still falling I realized, only now it was in slow motion. I opened my eyes, which stung – I guess from the salt - and I realized I could still see the light from the fire shining through the top film of water, but it was getting farther away every second. I tried to move myself upwards, digging against the force pulling me down, trying to crawl upwards through nothing. The blue world around me was only getting darker and colder. Not cold like ice is cold, but like a stone is cold – cold not from harshness or freezing, but from a lack of warmth. It was just cold and heavy and endless and even as I made the motions to pull myself upward I was still sinking. And it hurt.

“It only took about half a minute for my body to scream for air. I have never been so aware of my organs as when my lungs began to burn like they were filled with acid, as when they began to try to force their own expansion, causing my throat to ribbit out in desperate plea for my lips to open for it. I felt that deprivation travel up into my head, causing piercing moments of blackness. I felt the words of my thoughts become that of my body and not my mind: ‘please breathe.’

“What an interesting sensation that was. It was like I was possessed by something, or perhaps possessing something, that feared I was going to kill it. But still, I kept my nose and lips closed against its protests. I don’t know when I stopped trying to swim. Maybe I didn’t. Maybe my body just came so weak from its deprivation that it couldn’t do it anymore.

“ ‘please breathe’ my thoughts shouted. They sounded like my voice, but I smiled breathlessly against them. ‘please survive. Please save us. Don’t give up.’

“I didn’t listen. I realized, suddenly, that I didn’t have to. I didn’t have to do anything. I still felt the cold, and the pressure of the water, but it felt to me now like an assurance, like a wall against my back keeping me upright as I fought to keep my own will dominant.

“My lungs still tried hopelessly to pump the same used gas through my veins - still burned, still begged me to just open my mouth and let in the sweet air it knew was there. It could have made me laugh; how pathetic it was.

“Finally, I did. I opened my mouth, but I denied still the expansion that creature’s lungs begged for, instead forcing out all that remained of that last breath I had taken before I jumped. It moved up toward that dim red lights in big bubbles, and as they ascended, the exhale forced me down even farther into the black, hard, coldness.

“My body stopped asking me for anything. It was too tired. I knew I had won.”


	2. Doctor on Board

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Statement of Dr. Mary Emerett, regarding the aftermath of the shipwreck of the Corinthia and her emergence there from.

Statement of Dr. Mary Emerett, regarding her survival of the Corinthia.

“Its funny. You think that once you get onto a lifeboat, you’re safe. You see the ship going down behind you and you feel the gentle rock on the waves beneath you, and you know nothing but relief. It doesn’t even occur to you that you are still in the middle of the ocean, and that the few things you could grab while leaving are unlikely to last you until another ship along the same route passes. If it does. 

“Naturally, I was on the same boat as all my patients, or at least, those passengers and crewmen that most wanted to share a lifeboat with the surgeon. There’s always a scarcity of medicines aboard, but normally people need little more than a ginger tea and a glass of brandy to get them through the worst of it. Any illness greater than that is hardly worth treating anyways - the chances of surviving any major disease on a ship, where everything is infested with rats and hardly anyone has the space to breathe their own air is slim to none, no matter what fancy medicines you bring, or how fabulous of a doctor you are, and I have quite a reputation as a good doctor.

“The reason for that is quite simple. A few times while employed with the Corinthia I’d had someone come in and show signs of typhoid, or measles, or some other grave illness. And I tell them quite calmly to lay down and I’ll fetch them a tisane for their symptoms. These are dangerous illnesses with strong miasmas, and if the first patients aren’t dealt with quickly, the whole ship may become infected. Its is the duty of the ship’s surgeon to prevent that. 

“The medicine I make them was quite a comfortable one, and they feel their symptoms disappear quite quickly. There is no fuss, or hacking, or spewing of toxic bile. After that, the body can be wrapped in the blanket it laid on and disposed of with greatest ease and respect. As sad as a funeral is aboard a ship, I think all agree that a sea burial is preferable when there is only one person to morn.

“Those with me in the lifeboat were not the sick, really, but rather they were those of a constitution ill equipped to deal with rocking of a ship. They were those who complained most of nausea and poor bowels. There was also a pregnant woman, who seemed hopelessly naïve to the fact that her chances of carrying her child successfully given current circumstances were slim to none; an older lady with rheumatism; and a gentleman from some noble house or another, who was prone to headaches. There were ten of us all together in a small boat with nearly no rations. Death was inevitable, but I figured that all in attendance were basically in good health and would make decent enough rations for the rest. 

“The old woman died first, as expected, about four days in. We were fortunate enough to have the cook with us – he was in the “poor bowels” camp. He suggested we eat her before I had to, to my great relief. 

“I speak of this event with a lot of apathy, I know, but at the time, however rational cannibalism in such a circumstance is, it is difficult to look at a human body, as I imaging it would be to look at the newly fresh corpse of any animal, and think about where you can sink your teeth into. And, as you might imagine, the feeling of biting into raw skin feels terribly unnatural. 

“I and the pregnant woman shared the organs as the men demanded the majority of the muscle tissue. As much as I doubted the survival of her child even then, organ meat has vital nutrients that are necessary to keeping a woman in that state healthy – as healthy as she could be, at least, while being drained of energy and nutrients by her doomed fetus. I did wonder though, if the child were to survive, what kind of person it could be, having survived only by the fetal consumption of human hearts and livers. 

“That was the way we stayed alive. After a few days of hunger, the cook demanded my scalpel be used to slit the throat of another person. He said we should draw lots. I said we shouldn’t – it is best to pick the person who dies based on who is least likely to survive, and so I conducted a round of physical exams. The man I selected was one of those of naturally weak constitution – he’d had constant seasickness and diarrhea, and when I did my exam, his heart rate was faster than the others. We killed and ate him.   
“A week later, people started getting sick.

“Eating any kind of raw meat, of course, poses risks, but unlike animals, nearly all the diseases humans have are contagious. This young man must have had some kind of virus, which had infected us.

“As small spaces want to do, the close proximity of all of us exacerbated our sickness. The small boat became a mess of vomit and stool, which contributed greater to everyone’s illness. In the greatest part of our shared fever, my companions all craved my attentions as a doctor. They wanted me to sit calmly by them, to wash their foreheads with cool ocean water, to wipe their revolting yellow spit from their lips, and coo kindly about how they would be alright. Meanwhile, I was just as feverish and disgusting, with no one who felt any responsibility to ease my suffering. 

“I always felt quite proud of being a woman doctor, and more than that, being a woman doctor of good renown. I thought I had subverted some expectation of femininity with my success – that I had made my way in a man’s world and gained its respect despite my womanhood. 

“But I realized in that lifeboat that the role of a mother, a devoted wife, a filial daughter, it was all the same – a caretaker, who overlooks her own self-interests and denies her own needs in order to bend to the comfort of others. I really thought I was going to die like that - stranded in the middle of the ocean with half a dozen people who found my death to be little more of an inconvenience to them. I was going to die, after I had lived my life divorces of passion, of connection, of all the foolishness that comes with youth in the interest of being *allowed* to enter the medical profession. In the interest of being so rewarded I could die as I cleaned a stranger's vomit off his chin.

"It was in the interest of the health of others I had acted cruelly for my whole career, killing a part of my humanity to protect those around me. Making impossible choices so no one else had to. For the patients I could help, I worked tirelessly, I was called upon at all hours and hardly complained. I paid for medicines out of my own pocket where the ship could not justify the expense. 

“Here, in that lifeboat – what a word to use – I was dying, and no one cared. Their sympathies went only so far as my convenience to them.

“So I listened to them moan and vomit, and call for me and I felt the hatred of it fester in me. 

“The pregnant woman had died early. It was expected. The parasitic nature of reproduction means that it is nearly impossible for a woman in that state to recover from a severe virus like that.

" At least the fetus that killed her died too.

“I’d like to say I don’t know why I did it. But I do.

“John called out for me one night while I was gripped with chills – it meant my fever was getting higher, and I needed to drink something desperately, but he didn’t care. He wanted me to sit by him, to pat his back as he vomited into the ocean. I brought a scalpel with me as I crawled over to his section of the boat. I told him bloodletting was quite common in the north, that it would let the disease out, that it would help him sleep, blah, blah, blah, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t in a state to stop me as I slit his wrist and let the blood run into my waterskin. I needed it, and he clearly wasn’t making good use. I had to cut him a few times, as it kept clotting, but when I was satisfied, I scooped up some of the refuse that by then coated the floor of the boat and rubbed it into the wound. He hardly even noticed. 

“When he died of infection a few days later, the cook cut him up for us. The cook had probably been the healthiest among all of us, as if the disease had hardly even touched him, but unlike me, no one wanted that creepy bastard near them. Which is funny, because between the two of us, I certainly was responsible for the most deaths. Really, I don’t think he actually ever hurt anyone – just butchered them up afterwards. 

“We got picked up by cargo ship after maybe three or four weeks. Most of the passengers were either dead already or on the brink, aside from myself and the cook. Our saviors never figured I could have been responsible, but they were quite pleased to have another doctor on board.”


	3. Shadowed Babylon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Statement of the young mr. Alexander Norton, otherwise known as the Invisible Robber, regarding his experiences following the shipwreck of the Corinthia.

Statement of Alex Norton, regarding the time after his rescue from the Corinthia.

“Mom says lots of kids are afraid of the dark, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t ever. I think the dark is cool. When I was little, my sister Leslie used to always hide under her blanket because she thought there were monsters in the shadows behind the door of our bedroom. It was never super dark in our room because it had a window and you got starlight and moonlight, but it was still always too much for her and she got scared. I used to think it was funny, and sometimes I would play a joke on her by hiding under the foot of her bed where she couldn’t see me and grab her ankle right as she started to fall asleep. Mom always whooped me for it, but it was still fun. 

“Escaping the ship wasn't so hard. There was a nice man who helped Leslie and me get out to the lifeboats to meet mom, but after another boat picked us up, they wouldn’t take us home *or* back to our Aunt Nesta’s, because it was too far, so they just had us get off at their next port. I didn't know where we were, and neither did Mom, but we had to stay there because Mom said we needed to pay for another ship to take us home, and we didn't have any money because it was all back on the ship. so we were just stranded in a foreign country with no money to hire another ship to get home. Mom still told us to be thankful, though, that God had delivered us from perdition. I didn’t know what perdition was, but I don’t think that’s where we were. Maybe Mom didn’t know what it was either. 

“Not very many people there spoke English, and when people did try to, it was hard to understand. Because we couldn’t really talk to anyone, Mom couldn’t get any work. So instead, most of the time we all just sat against a building by the market and hoped people would give Mom money just because they felt bad for her. It wasn’t enough though – it was hardly enough to eat, and definitely too little to buy passage home. We were there for a long time. At night, we slept at the church, which had a roof, at least, and a clean place to lay down, but tit was made of stone and wasn’t really warmer than outside. It wasn’t too cold at that time of year, but sometimes mom would talk about how scared she was that winter would come before we could get home. And that made us scared, too.

“Everyday, we sat by the market for hours. Sometimes me and Leslie would run off to play, but Mom always got mad because less people would give her money if we weren’t there. But it got boring, sitting and looking sad, and if we were going to die here anyways, it seemed like a waste to be sad the whole time.

“So sometimes I’d run off and race Leslie through the isles of the market. It was fun because it was like the carts and tents were obstacles and you lost points if you hit them. Or sometimes we’d play tag, or hide-and-seek. I was always the best at hide-and-seek. The shop keepers didn’t like us – probably because sometimes we’d bump into their tables and knock something over, but we always apologized and helped pick it up, so there really was no reason for them to be so mean to us. They just didn't like us.

“There was a booth that sold loaves of bread and biscuits and things like that not far from where mom made us sit, and when everyone started packing up, they’d dump all the unsold bread into a big canvas bag and the next day they’d have new, fresh bread. So I asked once, as she was dumping it all into that bag one evening, if we could have some if it was going to be thrown away anyways.

“She said to me, after a huff, in really hard to understand English, ‘You rats scare away my customers and then ask for the goods I cannot sell. How dare you. I feed these to my pigs. And then I kill my pigs and bake them into pies. If you want my bread for free like the pigs then I can bake you into pies too.’ And then she smacked me with the end of her straw broom. ‘Get out rat. Scurry along to someone else.’ 

“That’s what they thought of us – that we were rats, that deserved food less than pigs. We didn't have money, so we were worthless to them.

“Mom always told us to be good Christians; to respect her, to not lie, to not envy, to not steal. We had to be good, because that’s what we owed to God for forgiving all the sins we weren’t allowed to do. Mom said we should be grateful. That God had delivered us. But He had delivered us to live as rats, starving in the streets. He had delivered us to be hated by people for not reason. 

"There's a part in the Bible that the Hebrews get taken away from their home to live in a place called Babylon. And they are treated meanly, like they aren't real people, and all they want is to go home and be people again. That's where God had delivered us to. To our own Babylon. 

"And then we owe *Him* goodness, for the things He has forgiven *us* for. 

“Isn't it stupid? How long it took me to start stealing from the market? I mean, it was so easy. All this food was right there on tables, and what were those sellers going to do? Jump over all their stuff to chase us down? Over one apple? A piece of bread that was going to go to the pigs anyways? No, it didn’t matter that much to any of them. So really, it wasn't even that Bad.

“That didn’t stop the bread seller from calling the city guard on me, though - not because she wanted her bread back, God knows her pigs won’t miss it, but because she was angry that *I* took it. She wanted to punish me. So I ran, and a man with a sword chased me. 

"Now I know that you should never run – in a crowd no one can see you if you move normal, follow the flow of traffic, walk slow – but back when I was little, I still thought the faster you get away, the safer you are. 

"But anyways, I ran and the man chased me, and I clung to that stupid loaf of bread, that was too dry anyway, that I needed so much more to me than that woman could even imagine, and I looked over my shoulder and I saw him still behind me. He was catching up, even as he had to push passed people. It was then I realized, finally, I couldn’t outrun him and I had to hide. I saw an alley, dark in the shadow of the two tall buildings on either side of it, and ducked into it. 

“You know how you can see a fog when it’s in front of you? Sure, wherever you are standing, everything looks hazier the farther away from you it is, but in a really thick fog, you can see these swirls of white air, like the tentacles of an octopus wrapping around you, seeping into your clothing and hair. Wherever they touch, you become cold. Damp cold, that you can’t get rid of until you change clothes and dry your hair. 

“That was sort of what it was like in that shadow, except it was black where fog is white, and warm where fog is cold - and how fog looks thicker farther away, the shadow seemed strongest right where I was standing, and lighter far off. So maybe it’s not really that much like fog at all, I guess. But I don't know. How else do you describe something that’s not like anything else? 

“But it was warm, and it wrapped around my body, and kissed my hair, and when the man with the sword followed me into the alley a few seconds later, he turned his head to look right at me, right at the darkest part of the shadow, and I heard a whisper, like a ‘shhhh’, like my mom would do when I was crying, but with a different voice, and I didn’t move. I didn’t make a sound. And then he looked the other way, and then just kept running down the alley, breaking into the light of the street on the other side. 

“After that, I knew I could always go to the shadows if I needed to, whenever a guard was called, or if someone noticed I’d grabbed their purse too early, I could just slide into an alley, or a doorway, or even behind a stall, and disappear. 

“I never told Mom, of course, about any of it. The first time I brought her the meat pie I took from a stall from three rows over I told her they’d given it to me. ‘Well, they are certainly good Christians,’ she said. That’s what she thought – that there was such thing as ‘good Christians,’ as if anyone cared about being ‘good’ half as much as she did. 

“Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe she knew the truth the whole time and she just said it as a joke. Maybe she’d realized the same thing I did. 

“Regardless, she never called me on my lies, not when I brought cabbages and cheese, and not when I brought her an amount of money that was obviously far more than anyone, ‘good Christian’ or otherwise, would have given up. 

“We were able to hire a ship in early November. When we came home, and I saw the shop we used to buy sweets from, and the bakery we bought bread from, and our uncle Harold’s cottage, it was like I was dreaming. Our house was still waiting for us. All our neighbors were so nice to us – they thought we had died in the shipwreck, and suddenly they all loved us more than anyone in the world. Mom pretended not to notice that several things were missing from our home. 

“But it wasn’t quite the same. I guess it couldn’t have been, could it? How do you become human again after so long as something less? How do you go to church on Sunday, knowing how cold the pews are? 

“And there were so many shadows in the village. I didn’t notice them before, but it seemed like they had noticed me. Like they had always been waiting for me to step into them.

“The shadows were never empty. Not in the alleys, or behind my bedroom door. We all have known that for a long time, haven’t we? It’s just that I had never had to be scared of them, because the thing that lurks there is just like me.”


	4. A Natural Progression

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Statement of William Smithy, regarding his departure from the mortal realm

“What a question. ‘How did I become like this?’ I could ask you the same thing. How did you become the narrator for the stories of those of us who chose evil? What started your obsession with the wicked and macabre? Did something happen that began you on this path, or was it always just a part of you? Did you come to write your books as just one step of a constant progression?

“Yes...That’s how it was for me, too. When I was young, I was the one that cut of the chicken’s heads and slit the pig’s throats to bleed them out. Me and millions of others all over the world. We do it because we need the meat. There’s nothing malicious about that. You don’t need to enjoy the blood to appreciate the bacon. 

“When it came to men, well, it was the same wasn’t it? We kill them because we have to - to protect society, or order, or something. If I didn’t do it, someone else would; its not as if my abstinence from it would have saved anyone’s life. Not to mention, execution makes good money. I’d kill a pig to feed my family, why not kill a criminal for the same reason? So I'd go to work, hack a man's head off, and go home to my wife feeling no worse for it.

“It took a long time for me to notice him, the man in black. He attended all my executions and stood right next to the stage with both hands on a black cane, like he was just waiting patiently.

“I imagine you’ve seen an execution, haven’t you? The energy of the crowd sort of refracts in on itself, making everyone angry, ready for blood. It’s loud, everyone’s shouting, sometimes people throw things. They need the criminal to die – like he’s a symbol of every injustice they’ve ever suffered. Its sort of impossible not to get swept up in that energy, once you’re in it. Humans are social animals; they feel each other’s energy like its their own. If everyone if angry and full of irrational hate, so are you. 

“But this man wasn’t like that. He didn’t feel any of it. He wore all black and stood with both hands braced against one of those canes with a silver handle. As everyone around him moved and shouted, he was just…still. And quiet. And... almost bored, you know? The first time I saw him, I froze, with my ax over my head, and he looked at me, right in my eyes. Then he looked at his pocket watch and made a hand motion at me, like, ‘get on with it,’ you know? Like this. And so I did. I brought my ax down, and forced it through that man’s neck, forcing it through the like of bones. I watched the blood spurt up out of him and heard that last gurgle of pain a severed head can make. The first hack got most of the way through, but there was still a little bit of skin attached on the far side, and it was keeping his head from falling off completely, so I made one more chop to get through it. When the head hit the basket and I looked up again, the man with the cane was gone.

“I think I sort of just accepted that the man was Death. After the first time I noticed him, I couldn’t stop seeing him. I tended to give him a nod, just to be polite, you know…when you make eye contact with someone … and he’d give me one too. It was sort of weird, like we knew each other. Not *friends*, but Death and I were certainly acquaintances who could nod to each other in the street. 

“That’s probably why he gave me the choice on the ship. 

“So there was the fire. I’m sure I’m not the first you’ve talked to about it, so I guess I don’t need to go into details. Who started it, by the way? Or was it really just an accident?

“Fine, fine, so there was the fire. I was asleep at the time, like a lot of people. When I woke up the entire room was filled with smoke. And he was there.

“I think I said something like ‘you’re kidding,’ and he threw his head back in a dull laugh. 

“‘I’m afraid so,’ he said. His voice was a lot more human than I expected. I guess at the time it didn’t even occur to me he could have ever been anything other than what he was. He seemed apologetic. This was the first time we’d ever spoke.

“ So, do I get the good place, or the bad place?’ I asked him. He said he didn’t know. He’d never been there. He said he hoped it was good. 

“I said I doubted it.

“And then he asked me if I wanted to stay. It wouldn’t be the same, he explained, I wouldn’t be alive, but I wouldn’t have to go to whatever was after. 

“So I asked what I had to do. I mean, who wouldn’t, right? Ha, well, maybe a lot of people. Probably more once he answered me.

“‘This,’ he said. He raised his hands out from him, with his cane in his right hand. That was the first time I was close enough to see that the handle of it was carved into a crow. I kind of wish I asked him where he got it – like, does that get assigned, or did he did he get it made after he became Death, or was he just Like That when he was human. Right? It makes you think.

“ So anyway, I was like ‘You want me to become a grim reaper?’ and he shrugs and goes ‘I wanted to give you the option.’

“And...I said ‘sure.’ It just seemed the thing to do, you know? Like part of a natural progression from my pig-bleeding days till now. We shook on it. When he smiled, his face suddenly seemed so much less gray. I hadn’t even noticed before, that he looked more like a long cold corpse than a living man. And just like that, the ship was alive again with the sound of rushed footsteps and shouting. I could feel the smoke, but it didn’t touch my lungs. The man who had been Death was gone. 

“It came naturally taking the hands of those that died in the smoke, or who starved on the boats, or were, in a few notable cases, eaten. I just appeared there. It was so simple, and honestly not all that different than my day job.

“No, I don’t think he tricked me. I see what you’re saying, but no. I don’t mind it. Its not like I’m cursed or anything, its just… what I’m supposed to be, I think. What I was meant for. 

“So, tell me - you're the expert - do you think I’m evil? Am I a monster? Are all of us? Are any of us? 

“No, I guess what I mean is, do you think, after all you’ve heard and studied and written, any of that really, I mean *really*, matters?"


	5. Wet Meat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Statement of Richard Parker, regarding his survival

Statement of Richard Parker, cook aboard the Corinthia, regarding his survival of the shipwreck and ongoing conditions of life. 

“There’s a reason there’s a name for it – ‘the custom of the sea.’ There's no hard law for it, no mortal man to enforce it, but we all follow it. Every man who takes a job aboard a ship knows that when it comes down to it, their lives are in the hands of Fate and Luck, far more than any god they can pray to. That’s why the rules are so strict - why you only board with your right foot, why you don’t whistle unless the winds been dead for days, why the Corinthia had only set sail on Sundays for the past five years before that last voyage. You people don’t get it. Sure, ‘look at the sailors, those superstitious fools.’ But you don’t get it. 

“I knew that bitch was a Jonah the moment she boarded - not only because she’s left-footed. Anna or Emma, or whatever her name was. Oh, she was beautiful all right, I'm sure that's all anyone's been saying. That’s what the captain thought. Beautiful like a siren is beautiful. Like a red sunrise is beautiful. 

“No, I didn’t see her do nothing, maybe she didn’t do nothing at all, but it was still her that caused it. I know it. She carries bad luck with her. And I hope she died in that fire, but I know she didn’t. People like that don’t ever die by accident. 

“I didn’t see her after the fire broke out. Hell, maybe she was busy lighting it. I just high tailed it to the lifeboats. I got in the one with the surgeon – it seemed like the best plan, you know? She was a woman, but she was reasonable. She knew what needed to be done – not the sort of lady to swoon at the sight of blood, right? I respected that. Plus, she’d helped me out quite a few times while on board, and probably prevented the whole crew from dying from the influenza more than a few times. 

“But she was still a woman, and I came to realize she lacked a respect for the custom of the sea, for the forces of fate. It was her fault. She’s the one who said we shouldn’t draw lots, that we should ‘maximize the chances of gross survival’ or whatever the fuck. And look what happened – we killed and ate a guy infected with fucking dysentery or some shit. That why everyone else died. It wasn’t me. I didn’t even kill that guy – the doctor did. She’s the one who slit his throat. 

“Oh, but I’m the monster right? I’m the monster who bled him out so we didn’t waste a drop, who cut him apart and cleaned him so the rest could survive. I’m the one who, when I had to, looked at a human corpse as the meat it was.

“Its not that different, you know, human meat from pork, flavor-wise. I’ve heard people say that – other sailors who fell on the same misfortunes. Its not so bad. The fat is good. Soft, easier to eat than beef. The muscle can be a little tough, but raw it was no trouble at all. And it had a good flavor, like a porkchop.

“Its really not as hard as you would think. It doesn’t feel as unnatural. Sure at first it’s weird – we’ve got an instinct, don’t we, like animals, to want to keep each other alive, like a pack of dogs protecting the injured ones. But we’ve also got an instinct to keep ourselves alive. And eventually that always wins out. 

“That sick bastard wasn’t the first we ate. First was the old lady, one of the passengers. We didn’t kill her – its just that the elements and the hunger and the thirst all got to her first. And after that we just had this corpse, and it was going to rot, and we were going to join it if we didn’t do something.

“So I suggested we eat her. The surgeon had brought her medical bag, and it had a few knives in it, so I said I could cut her up real easy. A few folks protested – there were around ten of us at the start – but it was weak. Like ‘Oh, we couldn’t possibly, could we?’ Of course we could. Because its an instinct. Because we’re just animals. And because when animals die, they’re just meat. 

“So I cut her up and we ate her, and it seemed like maybe we could, or some of us could, survive this thing. We just needed to hold out until a ship traveling the same route picked us up, assuming we were still anywhere near the normal routes. 

“It was weird, now that I think about it. Normally, you hug the coast the whole voyage, as much as the currents and wind allow; usually, you can even see land, if only like a gray cloud just above the horizon. But for the whole time we were floating in that lifeboat, I couldn’t see land in any direction. Maybe the Corinthia had gotten off track? Or maybe we did. 

“Eventually, another ship did find us, but only after everyone in the boat was dead except me and the surgeon. But by then, I’d changed, somehow.

“That’s why you’re here, aren’t you? To find out how I became…whatever I am? 

“If I’m being honest, I don’t know when it happened – how many people I had eaten the flesh of before I started to feel their strength, what had been left of it, seeping into me. I suppose it was just after the fever struck.  
“Everyone got sick. And the doctor, bless her, tried so hard to take care of everyone, even as she was just as bad off herself. There wasn’t any water, drinkable, anyways, even though that’s what a fever needs. The only liquid we had to drink was blood – and piss, but there was little use to that. At that point, I guess it didn’t matter if they were diseased or not. So I just waited for them to die, or get close enough that they wouldn’t feel it, I guess – it was easier if the heart was still pumping – and drain the blood out through the wrists. After that, the rest of the body could be cut up. After I ate and drank, I felt my fever break, but part of me always figured it was just my body’s relief that it had something in it. It wasn’t until we devoured the dead fetus of the woman who had died pregnant did I realize that what was happening wasn’t natural at all. 

“I wasn’t sick anymore. In fact, I felt fine – my head didn’t hurt, my joints didn’t ache, my muscles didn’t feel weak. I wasn’t dying. Ha, for the first time in what? Weeks? I was alive, and I was strong, but I was so, so, hungry. 

“The full-corpses didn’t help. No, they had to be alive, at least a little, with a heart pumping enough to keep them bleeding. At that point of illness though, they barely cared. Frankly, I think they craved death. That instinct to stay alive had left them in their weakness, and now, they weren’t even animals anymore, just livestock. 

“And so that’s how I survived. That’s how the doctor did too. There was a part of me that wanted to eat and kill her, too, but it wasn’t any stronger than my urge to kill you right now – I may be a monster, but I am still an animal, a pack animal, at that. And more than I wanted to taste her, I wanted to save her. Isn’t that strange? I didn’t give a shit about any of the rest of the cattle on that boat, but she was different. 

"She would kill them, too, without pause, but first… first she’d comfort them. Tell them they were going to be alright, tell them she was there, that they’d get through this. And then she would slit their wrists and hold it to her lips until they closed their eyes. 

“I’m not saying I think she’s a saint or nothing. I know she’s just as fucking evil as I am, but… I don’t know. I don’t think I could explain it to someone like you. 

“She knows what it is to walk the line between beast and human. How, even in our most monstrous, you need something to hold onto. Something human about you that keeps you rooted in reality. An anchor, you know? I don’t like to hurt people. I really don’t. But I will. Because I have to. But I don’t like it. And that matters, right? It must matter.”


End file.
